m a d
by Cookirini
Summary: As we lay together this one last time, I realize that this end we share now is one person's fault...my own. Based on events in manga Act 12.


**m.a.d.**

by cookirini

Why did it have to end up like this?

I can feel my essence drain from me, the longer I remain in this body. There's pain, but it lessens with each moment that I draw closer to the end. I know I don't have long left; I can see the blood on my hands, around my torso, and scattered about on the floor.

It's hard to remove that stain from the ground, let alone the one that has tarnished my soul.

It's hard to accept that I am to blame for this crime, but I realize that must accept it. It is because of me that you, and all my friends, had to follow me down this road. I regret the actions that I've done...

What have I done? Fallen in love? How is _that _a crime?

That in another time, another place, even another world...when we were different in most ways, perhaps there was a problem then. We were forbidden to see one another because of those differences. The prejudices of our races kept us apart; even before you were born I knew I was never allowed to love a man of your kind without repercussions.

Yet I fell in love with you.

For centuries I was all alone. None of the men on my world mattered to me in that way. They were all required to scrape and bow to me, to simply follow my commands. Even the suitors brought to me for marriage saw me as a statue, a delicate relic, the girl one had to worship and to please. I could never invite one of them to be my companion, to share a bed with me, to even hold me; they were too shallow, too empty of life.

Not like_ you_. You were a mortal, only human. You were a creature among those masses that I was destined to outlive and outshine. You would have likely died before I had even begun to ascend to my mother's throne. You were nothing in my people's eyes, even though you were royal yourself. If I mingled with you, I would bring disaster to everyone.

That was why I somehow fell in love with you. It started out as a fleeting infatuation, I admit; it didn't start out with the passion that it ended with. I had wanted danger in my life. I was young and wanted to take a chance, have a fling with whomever I wanted. So many years had passed, so many years of being sheltered. I became such a rebel, nothing could deter me from having you. You were young and handsome, and I wanted you.

I had told myself, the day your picture was shown to me, that I would be with you, even for a small amount of time, to see what you were. I promised, even as my mother dismissed you as a suitable candidate for me, that I should play the game with you, as all other women had before me.

It took me many days, many weeks, to plan what I would do with you. I decided to come to you in all my glory. I picked the best dress I had for seduction – a loose white gown with a red and gold trim, long spiral sleeves, and bare shoulders. I picked red roses from my mother's garden and pinned them throughout the strands of my hair, allowing the loose petals to fall on the floor in my wake like a nymph. I covered my eyelids with the lightest pink, and tinged my lips with the most luscious red lipstick.

And as slumber came to my people and yours, I descended down, gently, like an angel, and came to you in your forests. You were alone, hunting for nocturnal meat; you had strayed from your party to find better prey, and you smelled of your sweat. So I made my move, then and there; the roles reversed, and it was I descended on you with claws unsheathed, waiting for the primitive man to respond to me in kind.

But something happened when I did so. Instead of worshiping me, instead of a counterattack in kind, you simply smiled and took my hand, kissing it. Such a gentleman, you introduced yourself by your true name, a name I never forgot.

_Endymion_.

From that moment on, I realized you were different; you weren't scared of me, you didn't ravish me like I thought a mortal like you would. You saw beyond the mere moon girl, beyond the moon princess, beyond the immortal witch and everything else you had been taught of me by your peers...and saw the woman that I wanted to become.

It was the first time I had ever felt loved in that way. It aroused so much within me that I could barely even speak properly by the end of our first meeting. It was never intended to be more than a simple encounter. How it changed so quickly after that.

How _I_ changed.

We were doomed from that day on, but I didn't care. I loved you. I loved everything about you. You were so warm, and kind, and i beautiful /i . You made me want to be better, and not just for you, but for everyone. Everything you did to me, i for /i me...the way you talked, the way you smiled, the way you held me in your arms, and how we lay together on those long, cold nights...

I was the only woman in the universe in your eyes. And that was why we were destroyed. I was silly to think there weren't rivals. Like vipers waiting in the shadows waiting to hiss unkind words into eager ears, they surrounded us, knowing our crime, knowing what was to become of us. But I didn't want to believe that our love was a crime. It couldn't be such a terrible thing to feel like someone cared for you, and I couldn't bear the thought that there _could_ be anyone else for you but me.

But it was. We had to meet in secret to save our people from harm, and even that was sacrilegious. All that was right for me and you was wrong for everyone else. So for our actions - for my transgression which began the affair - I was forced to watch you die for me.

Then I died, alone, by my own hand. I couldn't bear life anymore.

All that we did to save ourselves from fate meant nothing in the end. It _means_ nothing, for it is ending again, just as it had last time in the old world. It is almost laughable how much these two deaths are alike.

Now, as I feel myself slip away from your arms again, I know it is my curiosity that has killed you once more. It could have been different this time. We were both humans this time, with nothing I could have been my plain old self, the self I had before all the evil queens, and the crazy men, and possessed statues and scary monsters and sailor soldiers and...and...when they came along...

...I couldn't have beard thinking of a life without you, and you without me. That is why it must happen just as it did in our old lives. That is why we always pay for our sins, no matter whether they occurred in this life or not.

That is why I had to destroy you. So that no one else may take me from your arms. So you will know nothing of regret, so that it may all hang on my heart.

Because in destroying you, I destroy myself.

I loved you. I still love you, and I always will love you. That will never, _ever_ change.

And for that, I welcome you once more, my beloved, to our mutually assured destruction.

_FIN_


End file.
